


Foreign Perspective

by Estirose



Category: Kamen Rider Kabuto
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-18
Updated: 2014-09-18
Packaged: 2018-02-17 20:44:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2322569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Estirose/pseuds/Estirose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bencia Highsmith meets an unusual young man during her exchange program in Tokyo. Fic for Suechallenge, years ago.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Foreign Perspective

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote two stories for Suechallenge, a challenge to write a deliberate stereotypical Mary Sue. The first story, "More Courage Than" (Power Rangers Ninja Storm) was an attempt to write a fairly realistic character who happened to have Sue-like traits. This one went the opposite way and was as unrealistic as possible.

Lost.

That's how the man - the young man, though she had no real idea of Japanese ages - looked as he walked past her. He looked like he'd been through something mind-shatteringly depressing.

She was lost, too, but in a different way. Her Japanese, though really good, wasn't quite good enough. She had no idea of where she was or how to get to where she'd gone; all she knew is that somewhere along the way, she'd made a wrong turn.

"Excuse me. Where is the Tokyo Tower?" she asked, hoping she wasn't mangling the words. 

He looked up, startled. What had startled him, whether it was anybody speaking to him at all or the particular fact that a foreigner, she couldn't tell. Thankfully, most everybody she'd met in Tokyo had been really friendly, especially since she spoke a fair amount of the language.

"It's not far," he managed. "You need to...." And out came a confusing torrent of directions, which she repeated back to him to make sure she got it right. She was certainly off-course.

"Thank you," she said sincerely. She silently wished him the best of luck as she paid heed to his directions.

* * *

She'd managed to get to the Tokyo Tower the previous day; how she'd missed it, she didn't know. She swore that the directions to the tower were included somewhere in her exchange packet.

Of course, her packet had been somewhat heavier in how to survive her six months as a government employee exchange person, not the tourist bit, though she was sure the Japanese government didn't mind a bit of tourism on the part of its temporary employees either.

She brushed her long brown hair back over her shoulders as she wandered about, just gathering the sights and sounds of Tokyo into her memory. She'd rationalized this vague trip on the grounds of getting to know those she worked for a little better.

Admittedly, she wasn't much to look at. Her hair was still too light to pass off as Japanese. Her skin tone and eye color, while they might be the occasional envy of her japanese colleagues, made her stand apart as well. In other words, being a white gal in Tokyo might not make her totally unusual, but she did not in any way, shape, or form blend in.

Her stomach was starting to rumble; she should get food soon, but she wasn't sure what she wanted to eat. She spotted a cafe down the street; it was called the "Bistro La Salle". French food with a Japanese twist, no doubt. Still, european food seemed more appealing to her than anything else, so she went in.

Not surprisingly, the menu had french names and Japanese descriptions, and all the workers were asian, probably Japanese. A female cook was in the kitchen; there were two servers for the small place, a young man and a young woman.

She ordered a meal after a few minutes of contemplation. The price was decent, though not cheap, for the Tokyo area. As the server delivered her meal, she realized with some startlement that he was the lost young man who had given her directions to the Tokyo Tower the other day.

She said as much to the equally-startled server, thanking him for his help on getting her in the right direction. "I'm Bencia Highsmith," she said. "Pleased to meet you. Please treat me well."

"Kagami Arata," the server said in response. "Pleased to meet you, Haisumisu-san."

She smiled at that. "Please, call me Bencia," she said smoothly. One learned diplomacy in civil service, that was sure.

Kagami - for she was sure that he'd probably be called by his family name, not his given name, gave her an almost-masked painful smile, and turned to go.

"Hey," she said, catching him. "I'd like to make it up to you. Lunch sometime. My treat."

She happened to catch the other server shooting Kagami a look. One of those 'don't screw this up' looks, she thought. "Um. Sure," Kagami said after a moment.

"Great! Um... please give me your cellphone number?" She was sure the guy was nice, but one couldn't be too careful. Of course, how the guy thought about the crazy American was probably going to be a factor in who got whose phone number.

* * *

In the end, they both ended up with each others' phone numbers. Not that she was going to date a guy two thirds her age (even if she could pass for a girl two thirds her age, but that was a different matter), but it would be nice to make some friends while she was in Tokyo.

She waited. After a while, she wondered if he was even coming. After all, in this era of paranoia and security, one might be forgiven for not wanting to meet with a stranger, even in a public place.

He came racing up. "Sorry," he said, looking flustered. "I got detained."

Bencia smiled. "Better late than never, eh?" The wording didn't quite translate well, but she hoped the reassuring smile did.

Kagami smiled slightly at that.

"So, shall we have lunch?" Bencia asked. She would have led him, but she got a sense that's what one Didn't Do in Japan, so she was a good girl and didn't do it. No sense in being written up on assault charges the first month one was in Tokyo. Besides, he was a guy, not a horse.

He at least didn't protest as she led him to a restaurant that served pseudo-American food. Pseudo, of course, because they didn't quite make it the same way she was used to back home, just like it was rare for Japanese restaurants back home to capture the true taste of Japan.

She didn't think it would bother Kagami; after all, he worked in a pseudo-French restaurant. She was grinning inwardly, but she tried to not let it show on her face, on the chance that he might take it the wrong way.

"So," she said after the two of them had ordered, "Thanks for rescuing me out of being lost. You should have gone into business as a city guide."

Actually, most of the Japanese people she'd asked for directions were that way; one didn't need a full grasp of Japanese to ask where something was, but they were happy when you did have that basic bit.

"It wasn't a problem," Kagami said carefully. Just enough to make her regret referencing it slightly.

But only very slightly.

"Certainly looked that way to me," she replied. Concepts of Uchi and Soto, inside and outside, be damned, he had helped her, she was going to help him more. "Wanna tell the non-understanding foreign person on general principles? Might make you feel better. Promise I won't tell anyone."

He looked reluctant, so she added, "Please? It looks like you need it. You're carrying a great burden."

"I want to be friends with someone, but he doesn't want to be friends with me," Kagami said. "In fact, I gave up something important to be his friend, and he threw it back in my face."

"That's not too good," Bencia observed wryly. "Why don't you just not deal with him, let him find out on his own that he's in the wrong?"

"It's a little more complicated than that," Kagami said. "He likes my co-worker Hiyori. Plus, there's some things I am into that he's into as well. So we see each other a lot. So, I want to make friends with him... but then he starts going on about me having forgotten things."

"Forgotten things?" Bencia echoed. "What things? Or is that too specific?"

"I don't know," Kagami said with some irritation. "He won't tell me, he gets cryptic and expects me to get it on my own. Meanwhile, I don't have a clue."

Bencia nodded. "I hate cryptic people," she said sympathetically. "Can you get that something you gave up back? Or is it gone, permanently?"

"I don't know," Kagami said, and she wished she could read him as easily as she did her western co-workers. "I guess I could claim it back, if I wanted." 

"Why wouldn't you want to?" Bencia asked, puzzled. "It sounds like it's yours. You have the right."

"Well... it isn't actually mine, it belongs to someone else. I took it up because I wanted to... and then I threw it away. Literally. They know where it is, though. I'm told they took it back."

"If they're still talking to you, that's a good thing, right?" Bencia prodded.

"They don't have a choice in the matter either," Kagami said. "They wanted something done with it against him, I refused to, I gave up my - I gave up the thing I'd so wanted for so long to not have to be in conflict with him."

Bencia sighed. "What a loyal friend - he doesn't know what he's missing, in rejecting you."

"I think he...." Kagami trailed off, apparently conflicted. Apparently, it wasn't easy to explain the details... life was like that. Bencia knew that all too well.

"Kagami - may I call you Kagami? First thing you have to ask is what's important to you. What are you willing to give up, and what aren't you willing to give up? What drives you? What's important in your life?"

He seemed to think deeply about that, and then shook his head. "I...."

"How did you get to know these people?" Bencia prompted. "Was it something that drew you to each other, happenstance? Why did you pay attention to the guy that likes your coworker?"

His eyes widened a bit, and then he shook his head. "It can't be...."

"What?"

"Haisumisu-san, thank you for the lunch," he said. He got up in a hurry and left.

"But we haven't even...." Bencia sputtered.

He was gone. It was a good thing she liked American food.

* * *

After that, Bencia avoided the Bistro La Salle. Not because it was too expensive, but because she figured that if Kagami had gotten what she said, then she should leave it be for a while, and then see how it was.

One day, she'd gotten some good new stuff from a dollar store nearby. She was enjoying the summer day as she strode through the park.

That was, until the green thing leapt at her. It was an overlarge green thing, with kind of a hat, and she couldn't think much more of it other than it had hideous eyes and three long fingers - two fingers in general and a thumb.

She screeched and ran the opposite way. She was aware that it might be a guy in a costume, but she'd rather be laughed at than be in danger of her life. She had watched science fiction shows when she was growing up, thank you very much. She wasn't stupid.

Gunfire eventually brought her to a halt. Squeezing herself behind a tree, she saw a whole mess of the green things being fired upon by men in helmets, and another man in a suit of some kind of armor - or was it a robot, since it looked so bulky - attacking the green things. 

The suit seemed to explode outwards, catching the green things in surprise. Beneath it was a man-shaped form in a bee-style motif. He pressed something, and then, two seconds later, all the green things blew up. And he was standing in front of the green explosions that were once green ugly creatures.

Suit-guy loosened his arm device, and it flew off, almost like a bee itself. The uniform seemed to break into a million pieces, swirl, and fade into the arm device.

Bencia blinked. Was that....

It was none other than Kagami. He seemed no longer conflicted as he talked to one of the armored troopers. Maybe he'd found his peace. Maybe she'd done him some good.

She sat down on the grass, her bag still beside her. She was smiling.

Maybe she hadn't gotten lost, after all....

-end


End file.
